Traffic Research With Google Analytics

Many online publishing platforms have either switched their statistics packages to Google Analytics, or have introduced ways for users to link their Analytics accounts to the publishing platform.


Suite101, for example, no longer retains any statistics or tracking (including keywords) on-site, having moved everyone to their own Analytics accounts some months ago. Squidoo, another large online publishing platform, have followed a similar path, but retain some basic on-site reporting.


Google Analytics itself has evolved (as has the Google AdSense Keyword Research Tool, another firm favorite) and in doing so has become more modern, more minimalist, and considerably more useful.


Google Analytics Reporting Tool


Anyone with a Google account can have access to Analytics. Anyone with a blog, Squidoo Lenses, a web page, or other online publishing platform needs to use Analytics to have any chance of leveraging their online presence.


It's misunderstood, however, by people who look only at the organic keywords as a way to gauge where they should be concentrating their publishing efforts.


Simply targeting the most searched-for keyword phrase that has delivered visitors is slightly missing the point. Yes, it's important, but so is tracking and measuring other statistics.


Using Google Analytics Organic Search Results


The aforementioned report can be found in the menu on the left hand side, under Search->Organic Search. It produces a list of the most frequently used keywords that have delivered visitors to the site, along with the number, and two other vital bits of data:

• the time spent on the site;
• the number of pages viewed (per visitor).

So, why are these important?

Firstly, the time spent is important for sites like Squidoo and Suite101, where advertising provides an important source of revenue.

The number of pages viewed is especially important for Suite101, as it shows which pages (articles) are keeping interest up, and, more importantly why.

Making the most of these two statistics requires that the whole list be exported to CSV, or a similar format, and then some clever sorting applied in a Google Docs spreadsheet.

There are a number of interesting formulae that can be used to weight these, but each reader is likely to want something different from the results, and so they should use their own experience to help filter out the best keyword phrases to target.

A final note - use the keywords to guide content, but don't write around them. Otherwise, you'll only ever have the same list coming back, and it's far better to introduce variety and try to capture fresh traffic.